The present invention relates to a system for managing credit card information.
In cases where goods or service (hereinafter called merely "goods") is purchased by using a credit card, a "charges forward contract" of goods is concluded between a credit user and a financial company such as a credit company (hereinafter merely called "credit company") in addition to a "purchase contract" concluded between the credit user and a member store, wherein in order to protect the credit it is indispensable for credit companies to collect information (hereinafter called credit information) for judging the payment capability of credit users, and since only the information owned by one credit company is insufficient, several credit information organizations are established to exchange credit information owned by several credit companies.
Delay of the payment to a credit company and insolvency are registered in the information list as "accident information", and a person with such a description on the information list is no more newly given any credit by a credit company. Therefore, such an information list is called "black list".
There are four credit information companies in Japan as credit information organizations, that is, bank-oriented organization, credit company oriented organization, white collar worker financing company oriented organization, and foreign credit company oriented organization. Information for distinguishing credit users (name, address, date of birth, etc.), information pertaining to credits (description of transactions, date of transactions, remaining credit amount, etc.) and accident information (delay of payment, insolvency, bankruptcy, etc.) are accumulated by these information centers. Credit information has been exchanged among the former three information centers in Japan since 1987.
A credit user is a member of a credit company and, a store or a shop is a member store of the credit company. Although a card management center is an information center of a credit information organization, the card management center may be a financial organization such as a credit company or other organizations.
When a member buys goods or service at a member store, using his credit card, the member shop must carry out a check of his creditability by checking whether or not his credit card is valid or whether or not the purchase is within the utilization limit (credit limit).
The checking is carried out by reference to the card management center by telephone or confirming a "List of invalid cards" equipped in member stores, whereas on-line reference by CAT has been recently prevailed.
The checking of the creditability of members should always be carried out on the basis of the newest information as a card utilization and credit management system. In a case of checking by reference to the "List of invalid cards" equipped in member stores, it is impossible to check the changes of credit card validity between the day of issuance of the list and the day of checking.
In a case of checking by reference to the card management center by telephone, although it is possible to acquire the newest information obtained by the card management center as a rule, there are some shortcomings that an accident may be presumed to occur due to "mishearing" because of manual communications and it takes a little longer time to confirm the creditability of credit users.
In view of these points, the CAT on-line reference is able to prevent an accident due to "mishearing" from occurring, to check abnormal utilization of doing "shopping at several stores" over the utilization limit in a short time, and to prevent illegal use of stolen cards from occurring.
However, in a case of the CAT reference method, it is the same as the abovementioned checking method by telephone with respect to carrying out a check using a telephone line. The use frequency of the CAT is remarkably increased in busy seasons such as Bon Festival or Christmas season, whereby since there arise several problems that the telephone lines are busy, the response of the card management center is delayed, etc., excessive facility investment is unavoidable to meet the peak demand. Furthermore, member stores must pay telephone charges, and when a credit company utilizes the CAT of a credit information organization, the credit company also pay the cost for the CAT management.
As described above, with respect to checking the creditability of members, since conventionally the whole information pertaining to the creditability of members exist in a card management center, the checking of creditability has been carried out by making a response to an inquiry from member stores. Therefore, there are some limitations in shortening the handling time of the checking of creditability.